“My grandmother’s stories could be chilling. There were stories about an ugly old witch woman whose name was People Slayer or People Butcher, who had the power to transform herself, to adopt the face of someone you liked and respected, and who at the last minute lunged at you, laughing in your face, HAHAHAHAHA, before she slaughtered you with a long sharp knife that she had been hiding under the folds of her robe all along and then ate you up.”

Informed by a bleak, nihilistic humor, Ayeeyo’s folk tales usually feature a hapless protagonist punished for their innocence or good deeds. The stories are a symbol of the hardy, survival-oriented desert culture, in which no one can be trusted, not even a familiar face, as this story shows. The underlying subtext to the tales is that people—especially women—can never drop their guard. One misstep can lead to death, “dishonor,” or worse.

“Eloquence, the use of fine language, is admired in Somalia; the work of great poets is praised and memorized for miles around their villages, sometimes for generations.”

Hirsi Ali’s memoir is also a vivid record of life in Somalia in the 20th century, evoking the uniqueness of the country’s nomadic pastoralist culture. Here, she notes that though Somalia did not have its own script for a long time, eloquence and poetry are important in the country, knit into the fabric of everyday life. The focus on eloquence also explains the sharp dialogue and illustrative language used by Hirsi Ali’s family.

“When the air conditioner broke or suddenly the tap stopped running, the Saudi women next door used to say the Jews did it. The children next door were taught to pray for the health of their parents and the destruction of the Jews […] Jews were like djinns, I decided. I had never met a Jew. (Neither had these Saudis.)”

Another instance of the text’s use of grim humor (“I had never met a Jew. (Neither had these Saudis.)”) to drive home a serious point, this passage describes how the Saudis demonize the Jewish people endlessly, despite—or because of—never having met a Jewish individual. Hirsi Ali thus draws attention to the serious problem of antisemitism.

“A new kind of Islam was on the march. It was much deeper, much clearer and stronger—much closer to the source of the religion—than the old kind of Islam my grandmother believed in, along with her spirit ancestors and djinns […] It was a huge evangelical sect backed massively by Saudi Arabian oil wealth and Iranian martyr propaganda.”

Hirsi Ali links the rise of radical Islam in Asia and Africa with the oil money of the Persian Gulf and an exaggerated focus on the afterlife. Her experience with more extremist versions of Islam leads to her struggles with Faith, Doubt, and the Construction of Moral Authority. However, she fails to examine the role of the West in contributing to the political and economic vacuum that facilitated this movement in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Haweya went insane. She pulled off her headscarf and coat and yelled, ‘It’s my ambition in life to become a prostitute! I know everything about how to get pregnant! Look at my breasts and buttocks. I will call a man to the window and tell him to give me his sperm and I will GET PREGNANT!’ Her screaming went on for hours. I could see that in a way Ma was enjoying Haweya’s sharp, biting language, but that didn’t make her any less angry.”

The teenage Haweya’s extreme words are an example of foreshadowing, since they predict her mental health issues and her reckless attitude to contraception. They also create the portrait of a very brave and clever young woman who does not back down from a conflict. Asha’s enjoyment of Haweya’s invective is tied with the Somalian love for the fine turn of phrase. Haweya’s angry outburst is also a protest against Gendered Socialization as the Systematic Erasure of Agency.

“We owed our husbands absolute obedience, he told the mothers and teenage girls who had gathered to listen to him. If we disobeyed them, they could beat us. We must be sexually available at any time outside our periods, ‘even on the saddle of a camel,’ as the hadith says.”

One of Hirsi Ali’s major ideas in the memoir is that the Quran and the hadiths provide a scriptural basis for the injustice against Muslim women. While the books of most major religions contain misogynistic passages, believers do not necessarily follow them in the contemporary age. In more extremist versions of Islam though, which calls for a stricter adherence to its scripture, the scriptural evidence is used by men to justify their treatment of women. Here, Hirsi Ali describes how Boqol Sawm quotes a hadith to suggest that women must submit to their husband’s desire at all times except during menstruation, reflecting Gendered Socialization as the Systematic Erasure of Agency.

“Excision doesn’t remove your desire or ability to enjoy sexual pleasure. The excision of women is cruel on many levels. It is physically cruel and painful; it sets girls up for a lifetime of suffering. And it is not even effective in its intent to remove their desire. Even though I had been infatuated with Kennedy and Abshir, I was completely unprepared to deal with the force of my desire for Mahmud.”

Hirsi Ali notes the cruel irony of performing female genital mutilation on girls: The act is supposed to excise them of desire, but fails at that, instead leaving them with dozens of other lifelong health issues. Not only is excision cruel, it is also pointless in the context of controlling female pleasure. Since the nerve endings remain, a woman can still experience desire, except in the most severe cases of mutilation.

“This is what my grandmother had meant when she warned me: if you are a Somali woman alone, you are like a piece of sheep fat in the sun. Ants and insects crawl all over you, and you cannot move or hide; you will be eaten and melted until nothing is left but a thin smear of grease. And she also warned us that if this happened, it would be our fault.”

The visual image of sheep fat rotting in heat and attracting insects sears through Ayaan’s brain, repulsing her with the implicit comparison of a living human being to a lifeless blob. However, as Ayaan later discovers, the true meaning behind Ayeeyo’s aphorism is to give her granddaughters a reality check about life as a Somali woman. They must be on the guard constantly to survive.

“In April 1991, my father came to Nairobi […] I jumped up screaming with excitement and began dancing for joy all over the place. Haweya was happy, too. Mahad was a bit quiet, and Ma had a look on her face that seemed to marvel at how forgiving we were.”

These lines highlight the power Hirsi has over his young children: So great is the children’s love for their father and desire for his approval that they forgive him for his thoughtless absence in a split second. The look on Asha’s face—in contrast with Ayaan’s spontaneous dance—brings home the absurdity of the situation.

“There is a Quranic injunction to women to be sexually available to their husband at all times. My father didn’t go into the details, but he read it: ‘Your wives are your tillage, go in unto your tillage in what manner so ever you will.’ […] This is also a kind of permission you give from the onset: you are always available. He can’t abuse that because he is from a good family. Force and rape are not an issue because he is a believing Muslim and he is an Osman Mahamud.”

Hirsi’s marriage “advice” to his daughter shows how patriarchy manipulates scripture and tradition to socialize women into thinking that they are inferior, less than human. Hirsi Ali notes that her father refers both to a supporting Quranic verse and the belief in the superiority of their subclan to prove to Ayaan that marital rape is a null concept. A man cannot rape his wife as she is his “tillage”; and an Osman Mahamud man in particular cannot commit the act as he is “from a good family.” The illogical statements illustrate the extent to which Hirsi has betrayed Ayaan: Having brought her up to ask questions, he now expects her to abandon all reason, exposing Gendered Socialization as the Systematic Erasure of Agency.

“I was staying in Bonn. I would not have put it this way in those days, but because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be a unit in a vast beehive. I might have a decent life, but I would be dependent—always—on someone treating me well.”

An example of Hirsi Ali’s evolving feminist consciousness before she can articulate it, these lines capture the real reason for her unease about her arranged marriage. In her culture, such a marriage would infantilize her permanently, placing her under her husband’s guardianship forever, always the child in the equation. The metaphor about being a cell in a beehive illustrates her unease with the clannish notion of the communal self which Hirsi Ali has already repudiated.

“Slowly, in the next few days, I shed the headscarf. I thought to myself, ‘I will tell Allah that I was careful. It didn’t do anyone any harm.’ He didn’t strike me with a thunderbolt. I concluded that when the Quran said women should cover their bodies, it must really just mean that they shouldn’t attract attention to themselves. This way I didn’t feel as though I was sinning.”

Hirsi Ali’s interpretation of the Quranic injunction of the hijab refers to the concept of modesty the Quran prescribes for both men and women. Hirsi Ali contends that modesty can be protected without wearing a veil or head-covering; her dialogue with Allah shows that she is trying to live her individual values within the Islamic framework at this point in time, reflecting Faith, Doubt, and the Construction of Moral Authority.

“‘My Dearest Liver,’ he began. My father used to call me his liver, which in Somali is very meaningful, because without a liver, you cannot survive. (Haweya was his eyes. Mahad he called his heart.) ‘In our game of hide-and-seek I finally got you.’”

Hirsi’s letter to Ayaan underscores both his charm and his danger: He softens Ayaan with his address of “my dearest liver” and trivializes his betrayal of her by flippantly comparing it to a game of hide-and-seek. The poetic words are juxtaposed against the menacing last four words, the crux of his letter—”I finally got you.”

“In the next few days, every Darod woman in the camp must have come to my caravan to try to talk me into going to Canada. They made it clear I was making the biggest mistake of my life […] Here in Europe, on my own, I would be garbage […] They cited every case in recent Somali history in which girls ran from their families and became prostitutes, sick, barren, unmarriageable—because come on, think it through, you’re twenty-three, you’re not getting younger.”

The Darod women’s warnings to Hirsi Ali show the magnitude of the hurdles she has to overcome to lead an independent life. Being told by her clanswomen that her decision will destroy her is an attempt to reinforce Gendered Socialization as the Systematic Erasure of Agency. Hirsi Ali holds onto her decision. The line about her not getting any younger at 23 illustrates her use of sarcastic humor in the text.

“I remember feeling as if I’d been hit in the stomach by the sight of women standing behind glass, naked or strung together in obscenely sexual clothes. It made me think of animal parts hanging off hooks at the butcher’s stall in Kariokor market. This was exploitation: I recoiled from it. Hanneke couldn’t persuade me that these women were doing it voluntarily, as an honest day’s work.”

One of the few instances in the memoir when Hirsi Ali critiques the West’s concept of liberalism, this passage contains ideas from second-wave feminism. Hirsi Ali senses that legalizing sex work in Amsterdam—a choice that supposedly empowers women—nevertheless may objectify female bodies, setting them up as objects to be consumed. Thus, the Western emphasis on the free market and the validity of all choices may have its drawbacks. Second-wave feminism views sex work as inherently exploitative, a view with which many contemporary feminists disagree.

“People had contested the whole basis of the idea of God’s power on earth, and they had done it with reasoning that was beautiful and compelling […] Spinoza said there were no miracles, no angels, no need to pray to anything outside ourselves: God was us, and nature. Emil Durkheim said humans fantasized religion to give themselves a sense of security.”

The more Hirsi Ali studies philosophy, the greater her disconnect with organized religion becomes, invoking Faith, Doubt, and the Construction of Moral Authority. She begins to realize that moral authority can be found in science, art, reason, and secular ideas, as much as in religious doctrine.

“Infuriatingly stupid analysts—especially people who called themselves Arabists, yet who seemed to know next to nothing about the reality of the Islamic world—wrote reams of commentary [after 9/11]. Their articles were all about Islam saving Aristotle and the zero, which medieval Muslim scholars had done more than eight hundred years ago; about Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance, not the slightest bit violent. These were fairy tales, nothing to do with the real world I knew.”

The sharp, decisive, and direct tone of this passage illustrates the certainty of Hirsi Ali’s views on the subject of Islamic terrorism. “Infuriatingly stupid analysts” expresses her frustration at Westerners and West-dwelling Muslims who affect authority despite being outsiders. Hirsi Ali’s views, on the other hand, are formed by her insider status as the direct survivor of gendered violence in conditions she attributes to Islamic influence.

“Everything in the newspapers was ‘Yes, but’: yes, it’s terrible to kill people, but. People theorized beautifully about poverty pushing people to terrorism; about colonialism and consumerism, pop culture and western decadence eating away at people’s culture and therefore causing the carnage. But Africa is the poorest continent, I knew, and poverty doesn’t cause terrorism.”

This passage shows Hirsi Ali’s deep discomfort with moral and cultural relativism, the ideology that suggests a people’s actions and morals be judged in the context of their cultural values, rather than those of another culture. For Hirsi Ali, relativism is a dangerous concept as it can excuse the worst crimes, such as mass killings, in the name of cultural context. She calls this relativism—”yes, but.” While Hirsi Ali’s reservations about relativism are valid, the generalization that poverty doesn’t cause terrorism is questionable. It can be argued that the poor can easily be radicalized on the promise of a better life for their families. Earlier, Hirsi Ali’s younger self, Ayaan, noted how the Brotherhood appealed to the poor by distributing free rations.

“By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.”

After 9/11, Hirsi Ali’s views on Islam undergo a significant hardening, with her no longer willing to locate her individual values within her religion. It becomes clear to her that her values are incompatible with Islam because Islam relies on submission (the literal meaning in Arabic), and submission itself undermines the religion, keeping followers trapped “into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century.” Hirsi Ali’s gradual disillusionment speaks to Faith, Doubt, and the Construction of Moral Authority.

“In those days, especially in Labor Party circles, people were always positive about Islam. If Muslims wanted mosques and separate graveyards and ritual slaughterhouses, such things were built. Community centers were provided. Islamic fundamentalist ideas were swelling in such centers, but Labor Party people usually dismissed this as a natural reaction […] They forgot how long it had taken Europe to shake off obscurantism and intolerance, and how difficult that struggle was.”

Along with her views on Islam, Hirsi Ali’s opinions on immigrants harden too. She believes immigrant communities, Muslims in particular, weaponize the space provided to them to cling to their old values. As this passage suggests, Hirsi Ali’s views here tend center-right, suggesting that cultural assimilation, rather than multiculturalism, is the way forward for the West, which she regards as the only way to protect liberal values and The Importance of Free Speech in Democracy.

“Karin said, ‘Don’t you realize how small this country is, and how explosive it is, what you’re saying?’ Explosive? In a country where prostitution and soft drugs are licit, where euthanasia and abortion are practiced […] Where the famous author Gerard Reve is renowned for having fantasized about making love with a donkey, an animal he used as a metaphor for God?”

Hirsi Ali is incredulous that criticizing Islam is seen as an “explosive” issue in a country in which people joke about making love to a donkey that symbolizes God. Her incredulity assumes that every culture values free speech in a similar manner, and that The Importance of Free Speech in Democracy is accepted by everyone.

“The woman in the middle of the room is veiled, but her veil is transparent at the front, opaque at the back. The transparency is necessary because it challenges Allah to look at what he created: the body of woman.”

The image of a woman wearing a transparent hijab is provocative and bold, since hijab means a modest garment in Islam, and a transparent hijab is not a hijab at all. However, Hirsi Ali uses the transparent hijab as a means for God to see the body that He created, the body that is the site of much debate and control. She wants to remind God that it is His creation, and therefore holy, as a protest against Gendered Socialization as the Systematic Erasure of Agency.

“People are always asking me what it’s like to live with death threats. It’s like being diagnosed with a chronic disease. It may flare up and kill you, but it may not. It could happen in a week, or not for decades. The people who ask me this usually have grown up in rich countries, Western Europe and America, after the Second World War. They take life for granted. Where I grew up, death is a constant visitor. A virus, bacteria, a parasite; drought and famine; soldiers, and torturers; could bring it to anyone, any time.”

Hirsi Ali makes the point that death does not have the same implications for her as it does for people who have grown up in privileged circumstances. As a survivor of displacement, civil war, poverty, and gendered violence, Hirsi Ali has always been aware of the nearness of death. The death threats she now receives are just one more item in the long list of things that have tried to kill her. Ayaan’s observation illustrates a subtle theme running through her memoir: The difference she feels from even the most liberal-minded of her Western friends. No matter how much they empathize with her, they can never know what it means to walk in her shoes.